Back in 2007 the Arizona Cardinals hired then Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt as head coach. Whiz embarked on a six year mission to import as many ex-Steeler players and coaches as he could. When ex-Steelers weren’t available, former Pitt Panthers would also suffice. It reached such a level of absurdity that “Pittsburgh West” became a trendy – and accurate – nickname for the Cardinals.

When Whisenhunt was fired in 2012, he was replaced by yet another former Steeler offensive coordinator, Bruce Arians. Arians has continued his predecessor’s habit of populating his team with guys who once wore the Black and Gold so much so that the Pittsburgh West nickname continues to be relevant. Meanwhile, Whisenhunt spent a year as an offensive coordinator before the Tennessee Titans gave him a second opportunity as head coach. As he’s set to enter his second season down in Music City, it appears Whiz is trying to give Arizona a run for their money.Continue reading »

Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau has “resigned” his position with the team in the wake of end-of-season meetings with head coach Mike Tomlin. No replacement has been named but it’s almost a foregone conclusion his protege, linebackers coach Keith Butler, will be taking the reins next season. The Steelers have blocked Butler from interviewing for defensive coordinator positions in recent years with the idea he’ll be LeBeau’s heir apparent. Well, looks like it’s time to see what the student has learned from the master.

At least this time the Steelers didn’t laughingly call LeBeau’s exit a “retirement.”Continue reading »

So this is what if feels like to have seen a UFO. Or Bigfoot. Or the Flyers win the Stanley Cup.

Here we are over twelve hours later and I still can’t believe what I saw yesterday afternoon actually happened. Is this real life? Is it just fantasy? I have no idea who those guys in bumblebee jerseys were but I’d like to see more of them.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, behind a record setting passing performance from Ben Roethlisberger, outgunned the Indianapolis Colts 51-34. The two teams combined for over a 1,000 yards of total offense. Big Ben became only the second QB in NFL history with 500 passing yards, 6 TD, 0 INT in a game. His 522 yards tied him with Boomer Esiason for fourth most in NFL history, thirty behind Norm Van Brocklin‘s record set back in 1951.Continue reading »

For the first quarter plus of last night’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Houston Texans, things could not have been going worse for the Black and Gold. The Steelers offense got off to glacial start – punctuated by boos from the Heinz Field faithful mixing in with the raindrops from above. And our defense couldn’t get off the field, allowing Houston to drive for three straight scores on their first three possessions. By early in the second quarter, Arian Foster had already tallied nearly 100 yards rushing while our inept secondary and anemic pass rush was making Ryan Fitzpatrick look like Joe Montana.

The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 17-9 then proceeded to add insult to injury by taking over their pool. Not that many in the crowd of 70,000 were offended considering a solid two thirds of them were Steeler fans anyway. There are a lot of terrible fan bases in the NFL but none scrape the bottom of the barrel quite as badly as Jacksonville. We’re five games into the season and other than week two at Baltimore, I don’t think the Black and Gold have played an actual road game yet.

As the first half came to an end in yesterday’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins, the Fins attempted an insane 52 yard field goal on the snow covered field into the notorious open end of the stadium. Predictably, the kick fell about ten yards short where Troy Polamalu caught it on the fly. Troy being Troy, he immediately took off running in an attempt to recreate Auburn-Alabama. After one of several laterals was miraculously caught by Ike Taylor, he decided not to tempt fate and fell on the ball rather than attempt a lateral of his own. It was one of the greatest meaningless plays I’ve ever seen.

Until the final play of the game.

After a failed fourth down conversion handed Miami a first down on the Steelers 9, the Dolphins milked the clock, ultimately settling for a field goal with a minute left. Three plays later, the Steelers were reduced to a desperate game of hook and lateral that ended when Antonio Brown some how broke free down the sideline and ran untouched for what looked to be a miraculous go-ahead touchdown. Unfortunately, AB’s pinky toe just nipped the sideline on his way to the end zone, thus preserving Miami’s 34-28 victory.Continue reading »

The Pittsburgh Steelers romped to a 37-27 victory over the Detroit Lions yesterday at Heinz Field. The near miraculous nature of their win is underscored by the fact their defense pulled out of a tailspin that threatened to send the game in the same direction as the Patriots debacle. Detroit finished with 451 total yards of offense, nearly 300 of which came in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the other three quarters saw the Black and Gold play perhaps their finest football of the season.

All season, the Steelers offense has played remarkably better when they’ve gone no-huddle. All season, the Steelers have refused go to the no-huddle until they’ve fallen a score or two behind. Head coach Mike Tomlin called it “a gimmick.” Todd Haley hates it because he’s not the one calling plays.

For the first time this year, the Steelers started the game going no-huddle. Naturally, they would score touchdowns on their first two possessions. With Ben Roethlisberger calling the plays, the Lions had no answers. Well, they did manage to force a three and out on our third drive.

Maybe if Ben studied his playbook a little more, we’d score on EVERY SINGLE POSSESSION.Continue reading »

Posted by Chris at 10:15 amDick LeBeauComments Off on Is It Time For Dick LeBeau To Go?

Nov052013

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating – I love Steeler Nation. There’s nothing like wearing a Super Bowl XL Champions t-shirt in Calgary, Canada or Albuquerque, New Mexico and having some complete random stranger walk up to you and say, “Go Stillers!” While I love the Pittsburgh Steelers fanbase, there’s a segment that drives me friggin’ crazy. If you want an example of who I’m talking about, just tune into Pittsburgh sports talk radio and you won’t have to listen for very long.

There’s an old football cliche that the most popular guy in town is the back-up quarterback. That was certainly true here at least until Terry Bradshaw started collecting rings. Since then, we’ve been relatively QB controversy free. Charlie Batch is certainly a more beloved figure locally than Ben Roethlisberger but only the most insane yinzer would’ve suggested starting Batch over (a healthy) Roethlisberger.

When it comes to the Steel City, the cliche should be amended to say, “the most popular guy in town in the previous offensive/defensive coordinator.”Continue reading »

“There’s a certain amount of misery with the position that we’re in. We’ll wear it. We don’t like it. We’ll wear it.” – Mike Tomlin

If the Pittsburgh Steelers 20-10 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals was an article of clothing, it’d be a pair of bowling shoes. Stinky ugly bowling shoes. Coach T was gracious about crediting Cincy for playing well during his post-game cliche-fest. All I’ll say is that if the Bengals are the class of the AFC North, then our division has quickly become the Big East of the NFL.

In my game preview, I mentioned this being the year quarterback Andy Dalton needed to take his game to the next level. The Ginger Rifle responded by playing a hideous game. Overthrows, underthrows, missing wide open receivers, Dalton did his best to keep the Steelers in the game. Unfortunately, the Black and Gold were in an even more charitable mood.Continue reading »

It appears the demise of the Steelers defense was greatly exaggerated.

After Sunday’s utter domination of the New York Giants, Dick LeBeau‘s crew finds themselves the top ranked defense in the entire NFL. Not the Bears. Not the Texans. Not the Niners.

The Pittsburgh Steelers.

Does anybody else remember all the way back to one measly month ago? I know many of my readers don’t live in the Pittsburgh area so let me tell you what every other yinzer calling in to sports talk radio was saying. The defense stinks. They couldn’t stop a nose bleed. Dick LeBeau is old and the game has passed him by. Without Troy Polamalu, the defense doesn’t have enough talent to get the job done.

I admit it. I jumped aboard that bandwagon. After the Steelers blew a 23-16 lead against the wretched Titans, surrendering 10 points in the final five minutes, I started thinking maybe the only way this team can win is to run up the score on their opponents and hold on for dear life. In my defense, Ben Roethlisberger must have harbored similar feelings because Cris Collinsworth mentioned about six times that he said he wanted the offense to start closing out games instead of relying on the defense.

Ironically, it was that Sunday Night game against the Bengals where the D finally came to life. Whether Ben’s comments filtered back to them or not, they stepped up. After allowing a field goal on Cincy’s opening drive of the second half, the defense forced five straight punts to close out the game, four of which were three and outs. Granted the Bengals don’t have the greatest offense but Andy Dalton nearly out-dueled Peyton Manning this past weekend. And they do feature AJ Green, the best receiver in football, who much-maligned Ike Taylor held to one catch for 8 yards.

ONE CATCH.

The next week, they did face a supposedly high powered offense. Robert Griffin III was being touted as the most fearsome offensive weapon in the league. The Redskins were coming off a heartbreaking loss to the Giants where they scored 23 points a week after dropping 38 on a solid Vikings unit. The Steelers stuffed RGIII like a three point buck and held Washington to a mere 12 points. Last Sunday, we faced the Giants and another high flying offense. If you subtract the bogus fumble recovery for a TD and the bogus personal foul on Ryan Clark that gave them 7 instead of settling for 3, the D held the G-Men to 9 points.

Blitzburgh is a thing of the past. Despite the overall #1 ranking, they’re only 22nd in sacks (14 total). This might be concerning except I’m starting to think the sack is the football equivalent of a save in baseball. A closer can come in with a 3 run lead, give up a two run home run and as long as he gets that third out, he’s credited with “saving” the game. Physically dragging the QB down is like a save, it’s a result that doesn’t speak to the action. Sure it would be nice to get sacks because they usually come with big losses but they’re not the be all and end all. The Steelers have been generating pressure on the QB. Forcing QBs to move around in the pocket, rushing throws, and generally disrupting their timing can all be done without registering a sack. And that’s what they’ve been doing.

Then we have Mike Tomlin‘s beloved “splash plays.” Again, the Steelers haven’t been doing well in that category. Their top ranked pass D is third from the bottom in interceptions. They have forced four fumbles which makes them about average but there is no denying the splash plays are few and far between. However, are splash plays truly an accurate measure of a good defense?

I’m not big on statistics because, as the saying goes, there are liars, damn liars, and statistics. When it comes to turnovers, stats are even more misleading. One of the great unspoken truths of the NFL is that turnovers are about 20% scheme and talent and 80% luck. When the Saints won the Super Bowl, they had the most opportunistic D in the NFL. The next year the same players ranked in the bottom third in turnovers and lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Patriots had the last ranked defense last season yet made it all the way to the Super Bowl because they got a lot of turnovers (playing teams like the Jets and Bills helps). This year they’re in the middle of the pack and as a result have had to do a lot of work to overcome a defense ranked 28th against the pass and 22nd in total yards allowed.

What I’m saying is turnovers are nice but they can’t be counted on over the long haul. You can’t say, “well, we give up 350 yards per game but lead the league in red zone INTs!” and think that can last. Eventually you’re not going to get that pick. Like a card counter in Vegas, you have to play the percentages. It’s far preferably to hold the other team to under 200 yards of offense than give up huge chunks on the hope the other team will turn the ball over before they score.

The personnel may be different but the philosophy is still the same. Disrupt the quarterback, stop the run, force the other team to become one dimensional. The Steelers are executing the Dick LeBeau game plan to a T. And the scary part is they’re doing it without the services of Troy Polamalu.

If they’re this good without him, what are they going to do when he comes back for a playoff run?